reaction but not quite the walkout as when iran's former leader mahmoud ahmadinejad's spoken two thousand and eleven. boys that. it wasn't the first time delegates had left in protest but it was certainly the most notable. some impunity says. the u.n. general assembly has frequently been a stage for theater and emotion this from soviet leader nikita khrushchev and palestinian leader yasser arafat in one thousand nine hundred seventy four i come bearing all branch in one hand and the freedom fighters going in the other to not let the olive branch fall for my hand. in two thousand and six u.s. president george w. bush and his venezuelan counterpart hugo chavez ups the stakes in drama and rivalry every nation in this chamber has responsibilities it's got this response the following day. they were there yesterday the devil came here.

right here. and it smells of sulfur still today while a touch of flamboyance might attract attention as days of speechmaking wind on other world leaders have resorted to props to make their point israel's leader in two thousand and nine. and again in two thousand and twelve this is. this is a fuse and on a final note proof that world leaders are only human this handwritten note from u.s. president george w. bush it reads i think i may need a bathroom break. understandable given the speeches and sideline meetings. go on for days. so maybe on the whole and on disease. let's hope no one speaks for four and a half hours a session starting on tuesday well that's it for the news hour stay with us though i'm back in just a few minutes with more of the base. right

. for decades puerto rico schools of being crumbling beneath the weight of massive

debt now one hundred seventy nine due to close for good the largest closure of schools in the history of this u.s. territory is a frightening development this elementary school will remain open but will take in one hundred fifty of the twenty seven thousand students due to be relocated that's double its current student body over the last decade enrollment of puerto rico schools has dropped by more than forty percent as families continue to leave those left behind often don't have the means to follow suit but ultimately it's now puerto rico's poor communities that are paying the price for this island's staggering debt the world's primary could change producing nation. is at the forefront of the war on drugs we're talking about serious organized crime as a country where reaching a critical point while some have made fortunes many others have suffered at the hands of this multi-billion dollar industry north of this business will go on forever it will not change on a global policy is the who are the winners and losers of this illicit trade snow of

the andes this time. in recent years the united nations has not reached its full potential because of bureaucracy and mismanagement on his first trip to the u.n. president criticizes the world body but pledges to help it reform. hello i'm barbara starr you're watching al-jazeera live from london also coming up on the program kurdish leader is a refused to back down this friday right supreme court suspending their independence and referendum syrian troops across the euphrates river right. being a stand off with u.s. backed rebels battling i saw on the other side. and we visit japan the men check

cafe is the country breaks its own record for the number of people reaching the age of one hundred. welcome to the program u.s. president donald trump has made is they beat you at the united nations an organization that in the past he slated he repeated his previous criticism saying the world body is not living up to its potential because a bureaucracy and mismanagement however this time he promised the u.s. the u.s. would help reform the u.n. to make it stronger and more effective our diplomatic editor james bays reports out from new york diplomats were wary about this trumps first trip to the united nations as president. trump has railed against the u.n. many times in the past suggesting it's inefficient and bloated at times this

transactional america first president that seemed to question the entire international system the sexist and since the u.n. was set up at the end of world war two ahead of the meeting there was some unease about what this unpredictable president might say but he only seemed concerned about how the microphones worked this race with its own result. when trump finally spoke there would have been a big sigh of relief felt across the united nations he now seems to be a fan of the organization. mr secretary general the united states and the member states president to support. this great reform vision we pledge to be partners in your work and i am confident that if we work together and champion truly bold reforms the united nations will emerge as a stronger more effective more just and greater force for peace and harmony in the

world so instead of declaring war on the u.n. trump seems already to be declaring a victory this turnabout it seems the result of an unlikely partnership between the us ambassador nikki haley and the u.n. secretary general who like the president took up his post in january and tonio good terrorists is a canny political operator who knows how all this needs to be presented to someone recently asked what keeps me up at night and my answer was simple bureaucracy fragmented structures byzantine procedures and endless red tape at the beginning of the year in washington d.c. i spoke with a senior white house official who said it was the administration's intent to gut the united nations that hasn't happened so for now the u.n. may feel it's dodged the bullet but this is an issue that will be revisited and it's possible down the line that president trump may feel that the changes that

have been made are not bold enough. the president will be staying in new york for most of the week he gives his long formal address to the u.n. on cheese day as well as holding meetings with other world leaders with north korea high on the agenda. of the united nations well our u.n. correspondent roslyn jordan joins us live now from the headquarters in new york so i mean do we see this says really the president changing his human over the u.n. . well certainly you may be seeing barbara is the fact that the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley has made reform of the institution as much her platform as the president's platform and certainly by working with someone who himself campaigned for the job as wanting to reform and refine the work of the year when she found common cause with antonio good terrorists they are said to have

a very close and warm working relationship and so it is entirely possible that she has been able to make an appeal on behalf of the un's validity and usefulness to the president now of course what needs to change according to some analysts is the funding that the u.s. wants to contribute to the united nations it's the single largest style funder both of its basic operations as well as to the peacekeeping operations and they're so far they're asking for big cuts in both from the u.s. congress now they get are they going to revise it or they simply going to let congress make the courts correction that would be a significant sign of whether donald trump truly does support the united nations and i mean obviously all the focus now will be on the u.n. general assembly but there's a lot of meetings going on on the sidelines over the next few days and it was quite a crucial one today on monday hosted by the u.k.

foreign minister tell us a little bit what that was about. boris johnson convened this meeting behind closed doors in order to have a very frank discussion with the leadership of me and mara or burma the state council. canceled her visit to new york late last week because of the ongoing crisis involving the running of people and with what some including people here at the united nations are suggesting maybe ethnic cleansing of the wrong in iraq kind state afterwards the foreign minister as well as u.s. ambassador hailing put out statements calling on the me and more authorities to essentially stop attacking the world bring in humanitarian aid allow the u.n. and non-governmental organizations to bring necessary food and medicine and emergency shelter to the working of people and then to work on a political solution as quickly as possible to resolve basically the status of

a stateless people very tough language coming from the united states and from the united kingdom after weeks of coming under increasing criticism from observers both political activists as well as from journalists that the united nations wasn't doing enough to respond to a crisis more than four hundred thousand have fled their homes or state for neighboring bangladesh a poor country that is struggling to make space for all of these people who say that they are trying to escape the violence of their homeland and certainly this is a significant step into possibly having the security council actually take some sort of actions possibly against me amman. jordan with the latest there at the united nations rosen thank you. critics. say they'll go ahead with an independence vote next week despite

a ruling by iraq supreme court. suspending the referendum the court ordered that the poll be postponed until questions about its legality have been addressed the referendum will be held on september twenty fifth in the three provinces that make up the oil rich kurdish region as well as this few territories the government of baghdad regional neighbors iran and turkey and the u.s. have all called for the vote to be delayed fearing that it could create instability which would help isolate hold of the i meet us more now from arab in the capital of the kurdish region. more pressure to postpone the referendum this time coming from the british government the u.k. defense secretary michael fallon is here in erbil where he is meeting with kurdish president must me he was earlier in baghdad and he said from there that he was coming here to try to convince the kurds to postpone the vote he also said that the

u.k. was firmly against it at this point now this comes after earlier in the day the federal supreme court issued a state order cooling for the suspension of the referendum until it reaches a final ruling now this is actually an order that should be by the forward to kurds even though shortly after the supreme court expressed itself a statement came out from the regional prime minister's office saying that the referendum was still going ahead but according to the thousand and five constitution well the federal supreme court is the authority that rules in case of ethnic sectarian and regional political problems in this country and the kurds were fully part of the process of writing that constitution so they are at the moment at least publicly showing still that posture of the foreign whether there are some

sort of negotiations going on between erbil and baghdad at the moment is something that one could fairly be confident about. syrian activists say government troops are close to encircling a pocket of eisel fighters in there as are after crossing the euphrates the river serves as a demarcation line between government allied forces and the u.s. backed rebels syrian government troops have been fighting ice along the west side of the river while u.s. backed rebels are battling the armed group on the east side or christophe is their actor at the council for arab british understanding here in london he says that this could mean an escalation between syrian government forces and rebel groups the forces concerned are only about five kilometers apart and remember overhead you've got russian fighters syrian fighters as well as american jets and other members of

the n.t.i. so coalition so the chances that there could be escalation by accident and we saw on saturday the fact that the russians are certainly been accused of bombing injuring six members of american backed forces. reserve or so that's just one example of what could happen but then there's also the escalation by design by crossing over the euphrates it certainly sends a message to the syrian democratic forces that are basically the majority of which are kurdish forces that the regime is prepared to cross that red line which had been agreed between washington and moscow now what we see here is several key strategic objectives going after the syrian regime and russia and iran certainly want to take their reserves the seventh largest city in syria it's important there have been seven hundred ninety thousand syrians who have been under

siege by isis to control the majority of the city until recently for three years. but more importantly perhaps in the long term is all the oil fields including syria's largest oil field which lie around the reserve across the province and so there is a massive rush to procure these both by these kurdish forces backed by the americans and the syrian regime. and i think a quick break we have lots more still to come on the program including islands across the caribbean prepare now there are powerful hurricane heads their way. this is. this is a fuse. we'll take a look back at some of the u.n. general assembly. moments over the past seven.

welcome back we'll start by looking at weather conditions across australia this time we're going to be seeing a change in temperatures for parts of south australia through into victoria as the wind changes from the southwest more and towards the west so melbourne will see the temperatures coming up to eighteen degrees as we head on through into wednesday and it should improve across times maybe i seventy look at highs of just twenty showers on the coast of queensland probably dying out of that stage and rather on the cosign for perth with the mix some nineteen degrees across into new zealand's been very unsettled here in recent days and we've still got this area of low pressure circulating close to the north on this the showers here there's a little bit of a gap across the south on a before the next weather system pushes in across the tasman sea produces more wet some windy weather as we head on through into wednesday so let's head up then into northeastern parts of asia.